Nik Wallenda completes tight-rope walk between Chicago skyscrapers blindfolded

CHICAGO - Record-breaking US tight-rope walker Nik Wallenda has accomplished yet another feat: walking between two skyscrapers 600 feet (183 m) above downtown Chicago - and doing part of it blindfolded.

The 35-year-old completed the back-to-back skyscraper crossings on Sunday (US time) without a safety net or a harness, watched by some 50,000 people.

He first walked uphill on the steel cable over the Chicago River connecting the Marina City tower to the top of the Leo Burnett building.


 The walk, which took him up a 19-degree angle, started at 588 ft and culminated at 671 ft, reported USAToday.

He then put on a blindfold and walked - at a height of 543 ft - between the two Marina City towers on a wire no thicker than 2cm.

He completed the whole "Skyscraper Live" walk in a little over eight minutes. (Video here)

The daredevil had initially planned to take a self-portrait with his phone on the tightrope but scrapped the idea.

The walk, broadcast on Discovery, was televised with a 10-second delay in case he fell.

Mr Wallenda is no stranger to death-defying stunts. In June last year, he walked across a wire 1,500 ft above a river in Arizona, becoming the first person to traverse the gorge near Grand Canyon Park in Arizona, reported CNN. In 2012, he made a record-breaking journey across Niagara Falls.

The seventh-generation aerialist is a member of the famous Flying Wallendas founded by his grandfather Karl Wallenda in the 1920s. His great-grandfather Karl Wallenda was killed at 73 during a failed attempt to walk between two buildings in Puerto Rico in 1978.

Mr Wallenda, who has been performing with his Flying Wallendas circus family since he was a toddler, told the media before performing the stunt that the most difficult part was the blindfold. He said: "Taking away that most important sense of a wire walker - vision and focus - is very, very challenging."

He told reporters after completing the Chicago stunt that he was hoping to replicate it in New York City but the police authorities were not exactly enthusiastic about the idea.

But he's not deterred. He was quoted by USAToday as saying: "The city didn't officially turn us down. … I live by three words: Never give up. I'll be walking in New York City."